Shifters in D&D

[AriesOmega]

I am thinking about retconning in my homebrew campaign setting shifters in for a native "barbarian" culture. The cliff notes version of this is that the humans that came to the area and are now dominate are settlers from another area. The came to the area and had a relationship with the natives similar to Europeans and Native Americans. They put them on reservations and so on.

Currently in my games I talk about them but no one has met a "barbarian". The dominate religion of the "settlers" Also current "Church" doctrine states that "inhumans"...races that are considered tainted and corrupt such as Hagspawn (pg 12, Unapproachable East, Forgotten Realms Setting), Orc, Goblin and so on do not have a soul and thusly killing one is not murder. Doctrine states that "demihumans" or "near humans" are those who are tainted but not corrupt such as Elves, Goliaths, Halflings and so on. Killing one of them is murder but not as sever as killing a human. Those races have a soul but not a human one that goes to the same heaven that humans go to.

Anyhow...I wrote in that the native "barbarian" population greeted the settlers, helped them out and so on. They were treated by the settlers like Europeans treated the Native Americans. The native population are orgaized in to tribes, with a tribal totem animal that they get power from and so on. They were given reservations when the settlers relocated them, usually land they didn't want. After a great war in which the barbarians helped out tremendously they were given portions of the conquered lands...which was ravaged by "unhuman" occupation and the damage of the war. They were basically moved off one crap piece of land to another so that they "settlers" could use it for farming or something since the "barbarians" were prospering on it. As a side note...they gave them huge tracks of conquered lands...and are prospering even more there and found wealth on it.

I was inspired byt the picture of and description of them in the 4E Players Handbook 2 and then read more about them in the various Eberron books.

So...since I have never actually had the players meet a NPC or a PC "barbarian" just hinted at them. Do you think shifters can be subsitutued for a "barbarian" culture?

[Cieyrin]

Shifters are a great wild race for usage as a barbarian race, as their shifting and closeness to nature lends itself well to such. 3rd edition Shifter shifting dovetailed well with raging, as well, making them a natural choice to go with on that front. If you look at the Totem Barbarian variant from Unearthed Arcana (which can also be found here: ), the various shifter types works even better, especially if you represent the various tribes specializing in different shifter traits and totems.

Them's my 2 copper. Take as you will.

[AriesOmega]

If you look at the Totem Barbarian variant from Unearthed Arcana (which can also be found here: ), the various shifter types works even better, especially if you represent the various tribes specializing in different shifter traits and totems.

I actually use that variant of Barbarian class. I take it a step further and made up my own totems as well as fleshed it out more...made it feel more "pathfindery". All in all I do use that variant and was thinking the same thing.